Potential Dangers as Defence Spending Softens

Many, considering that the benchmark Dibb Report of 1986 prescribed an increase in real terms of 3% per annum and the following year’s White Paper cleared the way for a minimum 1 % increase per annum, it is now ironic, and very sad, that defence has again become a political whipping horse on both sides of Parliament with the spectre of ongoing cutbacks irrespective of whoever resides in the Lodge.

As a point of interest it is worth noting that if the recommendations of Paul Dibb had been taken up from the 1987/88 budget onwards then the ADF would now be ahead by nearly two and a half billion dollars. This level of expenditure (and its large scale flow on to local industry) would have paved the way for this nation to have a highly potent defence force that will in the future, as it has in the past, be our only insurance against a potentially hostile world.

This of course is nowadays the problem. Peace has broken out and the aims of perestroika and glasnost are now being revered as much in Washington, Bonn and London as they were previously in Moscow. The Wall has fallen, Warpac is irrelevant as a military threat and the overall level of east west nuclear tension has fortunately subsided to previously undreamt of levels.

Great times, but will they last forever?

Any student of history will tell you just how quickly a threat can materialise. How much warning, for instance, did Russia have of Operation Barbarossa, despite what it thought was a watertight non aggression pact with Nazi Germany? Or for that matter the Americans at Pearl Harbour despite a mass of accumulated intelligence that pointed to a surprise attack. Even Hitler’s generals knew little of the mechanics of the Allied invasion of Europe till it actually began, and then it occurred not where they thought it would. How much prior warning did South Korea have of the invasion from the North in June 1950? Did the Pentagon in 1964 realise just how physically involved US forces would become in South Vietnam within one year? Did anyone in the West predict the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the international political and trade fracas that it would generate? Did the Arabs in 1967 predict the blitzkrieg attack of the IDF in 1967, or for that matter the Israelis themselves just a half decade later when Egyptian forces surged across the Suez Canal whilst Syrian armour overran much of the Golan Heights?

Likewise, you would have been laughed out of Whitehall in early 1982 if you had dared told the mandarins that a massive British battle fleet would be saying south to fight Argentina within a few short weeks. Australia is also not to be excluded. Did we predict the coup in Fiji, any of the numerous upheavals in the Philippines in recent years or the civil unrest that has closed one of the worlds largest bauxite mines on the island of Bougainville and consequently disturbed the already precarious political/ economic base of a crucial northern neighbour?

All these events have occurred in less than a half century and sadly they are merely the tip of the iceberg; there are dozens more where the ‘no threat for ten years’ and the ‘peace in our time’ scenario has gone up in flames at a moments notice. The new indicators of an emerging peace in Europe are fantastic but we must never let our guard down again to the point where the lessons of this twentieth century have to be relived, and died for again and again. It is cruel that often the only lesson of history is that we humans choose not to learn from our past mistakes.

Here in Australia in the first year of the final decade of a turbulent century we live in a relatively peaceful environment, yet we are still only anation of 17 million people amidst an overpopulated and increasingly more capable Asian world of immense potential. There is continuing unrest in the Philippines and the US is becoming less influential in our region as it begins to depart its regional bases. Who really knows what the long term political future of Niugini will be?

Indonesia’s President Suharto is looking for a sixth term in office after 1993, if his more radical constituents disapprove of this (as many do) then will internal unrest also rock this comparatively stable and vitally important neighbour of Australia? In a recent interview with Jane’s Defence Weekly Indonesia’s Minister for Political and Security Affairs, Adm Raden Sudomo stated that the communist threat in Indonesia was still very real with around 533,000 freed hard core communists and their sympathizers able to create havoc if the opportunity arose. Sudomo also raised the long-simmering issue of Muslim fundamentalists who are widely perceived as an additional security threat.

Will India remain at ‘peace’ with Pakistan and China despite continuing battles in the north west frontier region and a worsening of relations in recent months? India’s continued military buildup, including a subtle honing of its nuclear capability (along with Pakistan) could one day create problems for Australia that may well seem remote today but perhaps relevant a dozen years from now.

Amidst this background, we celebrate the newfound peace in Europe but our own region still remains a world apart. As recent as last December the Minister for Foreign Affairs & Trade, Senator Gareth Evans, stated that Australia ‘must be ready to use firepower’ in order to protect our security in our region of influence. Whilst issuing a 46 page statement to Parliament he stated that australia had to assume that in the next 10 years nations either in or outside our region might use military power a·nd influence to achieve goals contrary to our security interests”.

This is also in a world where the US has less political and military influence than it has ever had in modern history. Our only real hope that the US would assist us lies in our-hosting their strategically important bases such as North West Cape, Nurrungar and Pine Gap. For its part, Asia has changed considerably these past two decades with the result that the US may be less well disposed to rushing in to assist its Australian ally if the hostile nation was of similar political or strategic importance to it. For the future, Australia must be significantly self reliant and hone the defence of its vital sea-air gap to the extreme in order to be able to ensure that a major attack would never gain an operational foothold on our shores. Additionally, the more likely scenario, as practised last year in exercise K89, of limited harassment raids takes almost as much firepower from the defender’s point of view due to the vast distances involved and the strategic importance of many select targets on an individual basis. A surprise paradrop of commandos into Curtin, Tindal and Darwin followed by saboteur action from pre planted agents could render Australia’s comfortable security net null and void in the course of just one day. If you want to argue with that then first take a look at history.

The problem for Australia now lies in what is not being spent rather than what is. For a remote, resource and land rich nation such as Australia, populated by just 17 million people, living amidst over populated and under resourced neighbours to not take its defence as a priority one issue is tantamount to disaster, as witnessed by the events of a half century ago.

In the past decade we have seen the navy denuded of its fixed wing fleet air arm. Gone is the carrier that gave us force projection, gone are its capable A-4 Skyhawk fighter bombers (though fortunately to New Zealand) and Tracker ASW aircraft. Gone is the maritime blue water sea platform for the Sea King ASW helos as has the entire fleet of Wessex utility helos. Navy has also lost the destroyer tender HMAS Stalwart which is now being converted to a cruise ship in the Mediterranean, retired prematurely and sold off for a pittance. A sister ship for Tobruk will probably never be built though is desperately needed as is some form of helicopter capable ship to embark both Sea King and the army Black Hawks in support of remote operations. The ‘new’ oiler, Westralia, will not carry helos while efforts to gain a similar capability for HMAS Jervis Bay have proved just as fruitless.

The greatest tragedy though is that all of our surface combatants are not being equipped with a viable close in weapons system (CIWS). Only the FFG frigates have a Phalanx CIWS while at this stage the new Anzac frigates are mooted to have a system (Sea Sparrow) which may prove too expensive to acquire owing to reduced USN demand and the collapse of the NATO NFR90 frigate program. Obviously these can be added later but history does not traditionally allow its defensive players the opportunity to spend years modifying ships with systems that are more than simply add-ons to the basic hull.

The absence of CIWS on our DDGs, River class destroyers (which systems could then be easily transferred to the Anzacs) and larger ships such as HMASSuccess, Tobruk and Westralia is nothing short of criminal. What a potential adversary will use is the latest available technology. The tactical effect of Argentina possessing just a half dozen Exocet air-to-surface anti ship missiles and its implications upon the entire British fleet off the Falklands in 1982 is difficult to forget. , As was the British lack of AEW and elint.

The ease with which Iraq continually destroyed Gulf shipping using these weapons also begs the question as to why any surface combatant would nowadays go to sea without a multi layered CIWS system. As it stands our DDG’s in particular are simply surface targets rather than surface combatants. One pilot in one aircraft can successfully send such a vessel to the bottom in the same manner as every ship that the RN lost in the South Atlantic. The British would have also lost many more ships if the Argentineans had realised that their bombs were not fusing correctly. Aircraft in the past have always asked a high price of surface shipping. Remember some of the most powerful ships of their era – the Tirpitz, Bismarck, Yamato, Prince of Wales and Repulse, let alone the majority of the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour – all sunk by aircraft while such battles as Midway and the Coral Sea were really engagements between attacking and defending aircraft. Their efforts pale into insignificance nowadays as technology gives he who covets a Harpoon, Exocet, Otomat or any number of Soviet built equivalents a tactical edge undreamt of in the days of Admiral Halsey. In fact recent data released by General Dynamics, manufacturer of the RAM/Phalanx CIWS system,reveals that by 1997 over 100 nations will have in inventory some 40,000 such missiles. The cost of a Phalanx CIWS system (as is fitted to the FFG’s) is around $5m yet there is not money now and apparently never will be for putting something as simple and relatively inexpensive as a Phalanx or its equivalents aboard our three DDGs and their smaller sisters. The failure to do this could well be tragic in both human and strategic terms if ever these front line warships would ever have to go into battle.

Ironically though, it is the navy which today is to some extent causing the current budgetary problems. The combined fiscal drag created by the six Type 471 submarines and the eight Anzac Class Meko frigates will take the lion’s share of the defence equipment vote over the coming decade. These two projects are budgeted at around $8bn in 1989 values over a 15 year period for a time, increasing the proportion of funds dedicated to approved capital projects from around 66% to nearly 90%. This does not leave much else for the plethora of programs that are needed to maintain an effective and highly credible deterrent.

Will, for instance, the Caribou tactical transport be replaced or upgraded? There now exists a practical and cost efficient upgrade that for the first time ever actually increases the baseline performance of this venerable aircraft. Installation of GE CT? turboprops not only greatly reduces the maintenance burden created by the type’s geriatric piston engines but greatly increases its performance and frees it from the logistics problems associated with its reliance upon scarce avgas reserves whilst operating in remote regions. The conversion also has the added bonus of being able to be undertaken in-country with the project cost being saved well within the life of the aircraft by reduced maintenance and operating costs. But will it happen – don’t hold your breath! K89 also proved, if it really needed proving, that the Chinook heavy lift helos must also be upgraded and retained if we are to hurriedly deploy troops and vital equipment within the vast reaches of the remote north. Without the Chinook the RAAF found it impossible to deploy its mobile air defence radars to their Jequired positions for best operations (ie, hilltops) and security. _The Black Hawks were also short of fuel on many occasions, while it is now impossible to rapidly deploy the 155mm guns whilst a Black Hawk with a 105mm Hamel gun and its kit has a very slim radius of action indeed. TheArmy will ultimately require an additional company lift capability via additional Black Hawks beyond the 39 already contracted for: Whether or not these will be forthcoming is something that only will be answered in time.

Also ripe for upgrading, at a cost of around$1m an airframe, is the existing Bell UH-1 H Iroquois. This could go a long way to providing Army with its armed recce capability that it hopes to achieve with an eventual Kiowa replacement. Despite the attractions of upgrading the Hueys, this too is, like the Caribou, a project that will probably never see the light of day as defence spending is actually reduced in real terms from year to year.

The air force must also look to a full upgrade of the crucially important F-111 force, any half baked effort is a waste of resources in the extreme. The RAAF has in reality almost given up ever getting a real AEW aircraft. Admittedly the very high performance standards being set by the Jindalee over the horizon radar system are a contributing factor as to the specific need for an expensive AEW system, though its ability to offer in-depth airspace surveillance to both RAN and RAAF assets could well pay vast dividends in event of hostilities.

All of these things were cited as viable within the spirit of the 1986 Dibb Report. The Government’s reply to Dibb was the 1987 White Paper and yet we now spend something like 7% less than what Dr Paul Dibb and the then Defence Minister, Kim Beazley, promulgated as being achievable at the time.

Any nation that does not take its security seriously is in jeopardy of losing the peace. Peace itself only ever came through strength as no nation was ever successfully defeated by a weaker foe. For Australia, a viable defence force and a government committed to Australia’s future is the deterrent for the future. We are in danger, irrespective of who is in power, of losing sight of that aim.